Page:The Great Harry Thaw Case.djvu/244

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mother who had given him birth, who had nourished him at her breast, who had watched him in his sleepless bed at night as he was giving evidence of the troubles which were to have such a bearing on this case?

"When he broke down in church and tears fell from his eyes and a groan broke from his lips was he telling, was he acting a lie?

Harry Thaw loved Evelyn. He had loved her ever since he saw her in 1901. He had loved and wooed her honorably, and honorably sought to make her his wife.

"I make these assertions just before seeking to make any deductions from them. It is meet and proper that I establish them as facts. As early as 1901, when he found her on the stage, he realized that was not a fit place for a young girl like her. He was contemplating sending her to school—that is to say for three years. Then she might come out and take her station in the world as his wife.

"And if not, even though she did not become his wife, he would be amply repaid by the nobility of the act he had performed. Evelyn Nesbit says he met her in 1901 and called upon her frequently, but was not always at that time a welcome visitor. It seems her mind had been poisoned by the same persons who afterward poisoned her mind against him again. He says of her: 'When I first knew her she was the most active, laughing, strong and fair child I ever saw.'

"That was the time when she was the support of the family, going about in the daytime from studio to studio and appearing on the stage at night and pouring into the lap of her mother her scant wages.

"And what was the nature of the foul wrong done to this child?

"What was the fatal deed which he said he would gladly have purchased with his life if it could be undone?

"I say to you, these letters refer to no other transaction